assessment

Last September, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced: “Today is a great day! I have looked forward to this day for a long time–and so have America’s teachers, parents, students, and school leaders.” Duncan was excited about a new way of testing students, one that goes “beyond the bubble test,” the standardized assessments students take … Continue reading Beyond the Bubble Test: How Will We Measure Learning in the Future? →

The Rocketship network of charter Schools in San Jose is fairly new — the first school just opened in 2007. But from an observer’s perspective, a few lessons can be pulled from the way the young network has engineered the design of the school system. Can these ideas be applied to any school, whether … Continue reading Five Lessons Learned from a New Charter School →

Flickr:Casey Serin Speaking of test prep. A reader responded to me by email today about Debbie Stier’s quest to ace the SAT and to motivate her son to do well so he’s accepted to the best college. The reader wrote: “For any student considering college, the key is not the right test prep or cramming … Continue reading Testing, Testing →

Test prep is a massive, multi-billion dollar industry. That’s no surprise, considering the significance we place on testing. Say what you want about SATs and GREs and MCATs failing to fully represent a student’s skills or college readiness. Say what you want about schools looking at other factors when deciding who to accept. Tests still … Continue reading One Mom’s Quest to Ace the SAT Alongside Her Son →

Conovate, a Web-based assessment tool for teachers, now in Beta, is the result of its founder’s hope to give teachers a crucial missing tool: the ability to instantly see student progress. Sylvain Niles, CEO of Conovate, wants to provide a way for teachers to instantly track, analyze, and report on student performance over time by … Continue reading Is Instant Assessment an Important Teaching Tool? →

Testing is at the heart of many fraught issues surrounding education reform. Schools and school districts (and possibly even teachers) are evaluated based on their test scores. Educators say they’re obliged to teach to senseless standardized tests that don’t accurately reflect what students learn. On the policy side, the Department of Education is investing millions … Continue reading The Bubble Test: The Bane of Learning →

“Your brain’s important, but not all that important,” said Dr. James Paul Gee, a professor at Arizona State University and a leading authority on literacy and the potential of educational games, during a talk at the Learning and Brain conference last week. By that he means the following: What we’d assumed about the importance of … Continue reading Ten Surprising Truths about Video Games and Learning →

To Will Richardson, the word “reform” is inadequate in describing what needs to happen in education. “Transformation” is more accurate, and for years, he’s been actively proselytizing the need for a complete restructuring of the public education system. Richardson is now galvanizing his educator peers to send a loud — and just as importantly, clear … Continue reading What’s the New Narrative in the Education Revolution? →

It’s got all the makings of a dramatic documentary. Embattled education reformer aims to raise a billion dollars and brings in the big media guns for help: Oprah, Newsweek, Stephen Colbert. And that’s just during the first week of Michelle Rhee’s announcement of Students First. As the education community absorbs the news, Huffington Post’s Sam … Continue reading A Public Request for Michelle Rhee →

Some highlights from yesterday’s New York Times: “Top Test Scores from Shanghai Stun Educators,” which discusses Shanghai’s high achievement rates in an international assessment test known as PISA. “The results … appeared to reflect the culture of education there, including greater emphasis on teacher training and more time spent on studying rather than extracurricular activities … Continue reading Secrets to Success in Shanghai Test Scores →

Flickr: peruisay Anthony Armstrong is an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Del Mar Middle School in Tiburon, Calif. I’ve asked him to check in regularly about all the ways in which he uses the benefits of technology in his classroom. By Anthony Armstrong For the past few years, I’ve been using Quia ($49.99/year) for online … Continue reading How Technology Can Help Push Past Test Scores →